So I was randomly tricordering everything while playing Star Trek: Elite Force II when I scanned this fish at the Starfleet Academy in San Francisco, sometime in the late twenty-forth century.

“Description: Carp imported from Japan.”

Wouldn’t you know it, the pond there is full of individually named carp, all said to be imported from Japan. As far as I could tell nothing else around had a special label touting its origin and imported status, so it struck me as rather interesting how well Japan fits into this situation.

Japan definitely has that futuristic technological edge that makes it a nice fit for anything Sci-Fi from Blade Runner to Neuromancer to the X universe, but it also has that refined cultural edge that puts it so at home in the highly cultured, utopian Federation of Star Trek. It’s quite a compelling mix.